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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The extent to which a policy actor is perceived as being influential by others can shape their role in a policy
process. The interest group literature has examined how the use of advocacy tactics, such as lobbying or media
campaigns, contributes to an actor’s perceived influence. The policy networks literature, in turn, has found that
network ties and occupying certain institutional roles can explain why actors are perceived as influential. When
investigating what explains perceptions of influence, interest groups scholars have not accounted for network
interdependencies and network scholars have so far not examined the advocacy tactics used by interest groups.
This paper addresses the gap at the intersection of these two literatures by investigating the relationship between
network ties, institutional roles, advocacy tactics and the presence of influence attribution ties in climate change
policy networks. Exponential random graph models are applied to network data collected from the organisations
participating in the national climate change policymaking processes in six EU countries that vary by the extent to
which they are majoritarian or consensual democracies: Czechia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and
Sweden. The results show that network ties and institutional roles are better predictors of influence attribution
ties than advocacy tactics and that there is no pattern in the relationship between advocacy tactics and influence
attribution ties across different institutional contexts. These findings suggest that because influence is primarily
associated with structural factors (network ties and institutional roles) that more established policy actors are
likely to have more influence, which may inhibit the need for a significant step change in climate policies.
Description
Keywords
Climate change Policy network Interest groups Network analysis ERGM Perceived Influence
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Wagner, P. M., Ocelík, P., Gronow, A., Ylä-Anttila, T., Schmidt, L., Delicado, A. (2023). Network ties, institutional roles and advocacy tactics: Exploring explanations for perceptions of influence in climate change policy networks. Social Networks ,Vol. 75, pp. 78-87 (Available online 25 November 2021).